Plastic bags fashioned into eco clothes

Sainsbury's has designed a fashionable way to get rid of plastic packaging - by turning it into clothes.

The supermarket will launch a collection of clothes made from recycled plastic, thrown out by stores or returned to recycling bins, such as soft drink bottles, fruit and vegetable packaging, and even meat trays.

The shirts, trousers and skirts will go on sale at up to half the group's 500 stores later this year and will be at a similar price to clothes sold under the supermarket's Tu fashion range. They will feel like viscose or polyester-based fabrics, said Josie Cartridge, Tu's marketing manager.

The clothes will be manufactured in Europe to save on transport emissions and costs.

'We'll also be the first [supermarket] delivering a new product from our own waste,' said Cartridge.

Sainsbury's, which has promised that all cotton clothes will be Fair Trade and is also planning more organic lines this year, is part of a growing band of high street names promoting 'eco' fashion. Marks & Spencer, H&M and Next sell organic and Fair Trade clothes.

Cartridge believes eco fashion is at a similar stage to organic food a few years ago: 'It's moved at a very fast pace. We believe this is the next step.'

Matilda Lee, editor of the Ecologist magazine's 'Green Pages' and author of the book Eco Chic, said recycling packaging was a 'step in the right direction' but urged the supermarket to reduce packaging as well.

The most 'eco chic' way to be fashionable was to recycle your own clothes by altering them, invest in 'classical' styles that do not go out of fashion too soon, go for quality and look after clothes so they last longer, said Lee.

Sainsbury's is also sponsoring a show, at London College of Fashion, of futuristic textiles, including a 'disappearing' dress of biodegradable material.